I wrote earlier that in Cardon's book there was an old recipe where buckthorn barks were fermented in wood ash lye for a week, then the yarns were added and kept in the bath for another week. Helen had succeeded doing this and had written about it in her blog, so of course I had to try also:)

Last summer a friend of mine gave me alder buckthorn (Rhamnus frangula) barks, collected here in Finland then. I made lye from birch ashes like I wrote earlier and then I put 150grams of dried alder buckthorn barks to ferment in warm birch ash lye in a kettle in our wood stove. The pH of the bath was 10 at the beginning and it was yellow-orange. It started to ferment and after two days the pH ahd dropped to 6. I added more lye, but again after two days the pH had gone down. Arhg!! Again I added birch ash lye (pH8) and put 20grams of white alum mordanted yarn to it, but the pH wouldn't stay up! Finally I gave up and let it be neutral for one week, after which time I took the yarns away. They were the same orange as in the bath, no change in the air. It is no1 in the picture. I think I would have gotten the same color with normal boiling method. Disappointed, I strained the barks from the bath and dyed 100grams fo white yarn yellow with the rest of the bath, like usually.

Well, then another experiment with the buckthorn bark chips that I had bought from Germany as 'faulbaumrinde', I haven't been able to find out the latin name of the buckthorn they were from, so I don't know if they are from different tree as the Finnish barks.

These chips behaved differently from the start, I already posted a picture of the red glassjar earlier. Right after I had poured birch ash lye on the chips, they and the lye turned bright red. I was so excited! I had two experiments, in the glassjar 100grams and in the kettle 200grams of buckthorn bark chips.

First what happened with the glassjar:The pH was 10 at the beginning, but after two days in the morning I noticed that the liquid had turned yellow and the foam was coming from the jar. I had thought the lid was tight, but apparently not. The pH was 6 and so I poured all to a bigger jar and added more birch ash lye to raise the pH to 9. But then after two days the pH was 5 again! This lowering of the pH had to have something to do with fermenting, because when I store the ready lye in a bucket, the pH stays up, at least for some time. Everytime when I added lye to the jar, the color of the bath turned red, and I only had to look at the color to see that it always dropped after a few days, because it had turned yellow. Finally after one week I added lye once more to raise the pH to 8 and added 20grams of alum mordanted white yarn to it. After 5 days the pH had again dropped to 5 and the bath was yellow, also the yarn was yellow every time I raised it from the jar to look, if it would change red. By that time I had mentally given up, it wasn't going to work.

What happend in the kettle at the same time:

also there the pH was 10 to begin with and bath really red, looking wonderful. After two days the bath was still red and it had started to ferment with red bubbles, the pH had though dropped to 8, but that wasn't bad compared to the glassjar. And it was still red. After three days of fermenting it had gone down to 6 and the bath was yellow (day five from the beginning). I added more lye (pH8) and 20grams of white alum mordanted yarn. Now for some unknown reason here in the kettle the pH stayed now about 8 for five days (and didn't drop like in the jar) and the bath was red, even if the yarn did look yellowish orange. The temperature had been between 20 and 40C in all these experiments, It was difficult to keep at the same temperature all the time. I had almost every day raied the yarn from the bath to see if there was any change of color, but no, they were not red. After five days I took both yarns, from the kettle and from the glassjar, away from the bath and put to dry in a string, meaning to wash them the next day. They were yellowish orange, BUT after about half an hour in the air, a miracle happened and they had turned - oxidized - red, just like Helen had said! The yarn from the glassjar (where there were less bark chips/yarn and where the pH had gone up and down many times) was brighter and lighter red (no2), than the yarn from the kettle, which was deeper and a little more brownish red (no3).

When I showed these yarns to DH, he asked if I was sure I hadn't accidentally put madder in the bath:) No, these colors really came from buchkthorn bark.

The yarn, which had been in the kettle with higher pH, was a little coarse, so this was not very good for it, but this needs more testing. Maybe shorter time would be enough and also the yarn from the glassjar, with lower pH, did give red.

I have lots of questions and I have to test these fro light fastness later in the spring when there is more sunshine than now. Washing fastness was good, there was no bleeding and the color didn't change, even though I used my usual neutral soap(Ecover, for wool).

In these experiments I used a lot more bark chips than I would usually. If I used the boiling method I would have dyed one kg of yarn yellow with 200grams of bark chips. I am going to dye with the rest of the baths later on, so they won't go to waste. is this big amount necessary, I have to test that also. And is the lowering of the pH during the fermenting bad? Should the pH be all the time higher? And what really happens to the dyestuffs when the bark ferments?

Also, why did the Finnish alder buckthorn barks not give red? Is it a different buckthorn species or were the barks no old enough? I have read that barks should be at least 6 months old before using, the longer the better, the same as with madder, but is this so? I don't know.

I know that I will get red easier with madder, but this is exciting, trying old recipes. I am definitely going to continue experiments:)

Hi LeenaFirst,you have a wonderful blog!i have been dyeing with buckthorn-not alder buckthorn-in a slow cooker.I tried fermenting the colour and had a reddish brown.Then i heated the dye up to 80c ,put in my wool and silk and when it had reached a yellow colour( WITH NO MORDANT) took it out and dipped it in oak wood ash-immediately i had a vibrant pinkish red.I have washed this and the colour still remains.i wonder if the buckthorn is better than the alder buckthorn?

Firstly congratulations on getting the red it is such beautiful colour, more of a red than I got I wonder whether that is water

I have been having problems too! I tried the buckthorn bark first as I did not have any alder buckthorn. Now I have alder buckthorn I have got no red from it. I thought like you it might be because the ph dropped down to neutral but now Iam wondering. However I will try again. It is interesting that with the buckthorn bark the one where the pH was a little lower gave a clearer red. I will have to try again. You keep very detailed records too-quite put me to shame.

Helen, thank you for inpiring me to try buckthornbark at the first place, I think there is still much to experiment with it:)Fiberfanatic, do you know the latin name for the buckthorn you used?I am still a little confused between the species of the buckthorn: the one we have here, which is alder buckthorn, Rhamnus frangula, and the one I have bought(which name I don't know), because they do give different color. Or is the difference only in the way the barks are dried or their age?

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WHY USE NATURAL DYES

"We can keep the knowledge of their use alive, as well as regaining for ourselves a vital contact with the natural world. The ability to correctly identify the plants needed, to understand their growth stages sufficiently well to be able to obtain the greatest dye, offer both challenge and pleasure."

We sell our yarns, mitten kits, knitted things and my husband's photographs at the market Kauppatori in Helsinki. From the beginning of October until mid May my husband will be at the market only on Saturdays, unless the weather is very bad.